chicot

Thanks.

Never seen that one. I'll have to have a look for it.

No political point to this. Just thought it was a pretty good spoof (and the football metaphors are appropriate to this board too). Onion link

Neither. Tigers are a highly endangered species.

Facts? Most of that piece is made up of the results of Iraqi opinion polls. I recall you taking me to task for quoting opinion polls showing that a majority of Iraqis wanted a withdrawal of coalition forces. You can't have it both ways. Either opinion polls mean nothing, in which case there's very little of substance in that piece or they do mean something, in which case you have to accept that most Iraqis want an end to the occupation. Which is it?

Apologies if this has been posted before. Interesting test. I came out slightly more to the left and libertarian than Gandhi. Political compass test

I think you slightly misunderstood my post as it wasn't really about the rights and wrongs of the war so much as about the series of cockups that followed it and contributed to the mess Iraq is in now. I actually believe that there was a chance that this all could have gone fairly well and that Iraq would now be fairly peaceful and Bush would be smelling of roses and well ahead in the polls at this stage - there was a great deal of gratitude towards the US immediately following the fall of Saddam. Unfortunately, the arrogance and incompetence shown in the handling of post-war Iraq has squandered all this. It should be pretty obvious to anyone with a bit of common-sense that one of the first things the coalition should do is to reduce unemployment in Iraq - people whose livelihood depends on being employed by the CPA are far less likely to join the resistance. Sadr City is a good example of this - the immediate priority should have been to provide the basic services that these slum areas have been lacking for so long. They should have ensured that the population were involved in this effort - it doesn't matter what they got them doing - unskilled labour, whatever, just so long as they were putting them to work. Had they done so, Al-Sadr would have found it far more difficult to recruit so many of the inhabitants into his Mehdi Army. Instead, the CPA blind idealogical adherence to free market principles, wherever, whatever the situation, meant that exactly the opposite happened- many Iraqis lost their jobs as a direct result of the CPA's reforms. Maybe these free market reforms will, in the long term, benefit Iraq and it will be a land of milk and honey in fifty years time. That should not have been the priority at this time - it should be obvious that having thousands of young men sitting around doing nothing and seriously pissed at the US is fertile recruiting ground for an insurgency. When you add that to the absurdity of failing to secure the weapons depots (Kerry was spot on when he mentioned this - people from my relative's village were going to US soldiers and begging them to secure these sites as they were getting pretty worried about unsavoury characters marching in and walking off with mortars, RPGS, etc), you have a recipe for disaster.

Who exactly is denying that Saddam is a bad person?

"The strategy is not to invade every country, but to change a few to show that democracy and free markets can work." And what happens if the populations of these countries don't actually want a free market economy? What happens if they actually prefer (horror!) socialism? Do you then force it on them? How does that then square with democracy - isn't the basis on which your countries economy is to be founded a fundamental issue that should be decided by the government of that country and not imposed on them from without? How do you think the Iraqis that have been made redundant by Bremer's glorious reforms feel about the US? People don't generally like losing their jobs at the best of times. Having a foreign occupying power telling them they are surplus to requirements is not going to do much to win hearts and minds.

Nope, all the indications are that Iraq is way down the list of Australian voters concerns. It just is not a factor.

Ah, the recent Doonesbury cartoons in the friggin' Guardian are suddenly starting to make sense ...

Well, you're probably in a far better position to know than I am.

Survivor was. Never heard of The Apprentice.

Ok, I'll take your word for that. I haven't seen the debate yet (I'm not staying up untill 3am to watch two idiots talk stevestojan). I may catch the "highlights" later.

"N. Korea had nukes long before Iraq war" That is by no means a fact. It is speculated that North Korea may have one or two nukes, it is certainly not a fact. It is not known for sure whether they have them yet, let alone when they got them.

Some Italian politicians do, for a start: $1 million?

And what would happen if Israel were to cap Tehran with 25KT? This is the problem - double standards. Why is Israel to be allowed atomic weapons but not Iran? Is Iran's government really more irresponsible and likely to start a war than that of Ariel Sharon? To be honest, I would be far happier if no one at all had atomic weapons but that isn't going to happen. The cat is out of the bag now and the technology cannot be wished away. Like it or not, regimes that the US considers "dodgy" are going to get atomic weapons one day, but is that really a more scary prospect than Mao or Stalin having them?

Thanks, but I don't take Ed's posts too seriously. As for his absurd claim that I am an "anti-Jew muslim"? As I've pointed out several times on this board, I'm not a muslim. Unfortunately, this fact doesn't seem to register with Ed for some reason. As for the anti-Jew part, as you yourself pointed out, being critical of Israel's policy towards the Palestinians does not equate to being anti-Jew. If that were the case, there must be many thousands of Jews who are themselves "anti-Jew", since there is nothing I have said on this board on the subject of Israel/Palestine that has not been said by people of Jewish origin. I suppose it makes life a lot easier to just label someone a "jew-hater" or "anti-semitic" rather than actually address the issues and, unfortunately, many people seem to prefer the lazy option.

Not to be pedantic (ok, so I am being pedantic ) but Bib was talking about me seeing no difference between them. In your example, there would have been a difference.

What if an elected Iraqi government asks them to leave?

The only problem with this argument is that Iran has signed the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and hence is under an obligation not to pursue nuclear technology for military use. There is a great deal of hypocrisy in the US deciding who is "responsible" enough to have nuclear weapons, given that it has one of the largest stockpiles in the world, is the only nation to have actually used them in a war and is, even now, actively researching new ways to use nuclear technology in warfare.

I've always thought that the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was a better comparison than Vietnam. Superpower invades third-world country and installs friendly government, nationalism inspires resistance in country, superpower leaves and friendly government falls (though I doubt that Allawi will manage to hang around for as long as Najibullah managed to, if the US pulls out).

How much fighting did Iraqi forces do in Najaf? Unless Allawi is planning on shipping in Kurdish militia to do the job, which would seriously jeopardize the future stability of Iraq, it just is not going to happen. The "new" Iraqi military is inexperienced, underequipped and undermotivated. It is also almost certainly heavily infiltrated by the resistance. Given an order to attack Fallujah, most of them will probably refuse, as happened last time. Some may actually go over to the side of the "anti-Iraqi forces" (to use the Bizarro-world description of them), as also happened last time.

DC Tom is really John Kerry ?!

Seems that the brother of the hostage doesn't quite share your distaste for Al-Jazeera: << In the Netherlands, Paul Bigley has spent the last week sitting at his computer in his flat. "I haven't spoken to the Foreign Office at all," he said. "The most helpful people have been al-Jazeera. They have somehow, with their contacts, got me indirect access to the terrorists. "The statements I make through them reach the insurgents in half an hour. All I have had from al-Jazeera is support." >> Friggin' Guardian link